Infinitely Losing My Edge
Yeah, I'm losing my edge.
I'm losing my edge.
The kids are coming up from behind.
I'm losing my edge.
I'm losing my edge to the kids from Albania and from Mumbai.
But I was there.
I was there in 1968.
I was there at the first Can show in Cologne.
I'm losing my edge.
I'm losing my edge to the kids whose footsteps I hear when they get on the decks.
I'm losing my edge to the internet seekers who can tell me every member of every good group from 1965 to 1970.
I'm losing my edge.
To all the kids in Philadelphia and Sao Paulo.
I'm losing my edge to the art-school Tehran kids in little jackets and borrowed nostalgia for the unremembered nineties.
I'm losing my edge.
I'm losing my edge.
I can hear the footsteps every night on the decks.
But I was there.
I was there in 1970 at the first Onyeabor practice in a loft in Enugu.
I was working on the güiro sounds with much patience.
I was there when Nile Rodgers started up his first band.
I told him, "Don't do it that way. You'll never make a dime."
I was there.
I was the first guy playing Gary Puckett & The Union Gap to the crunk kids.
I played it at the Astoria.
Everybody thought I was crazy.
We all know.
I was there.
I was there.
I've never been wrong.
But I'm losing my edge to better-looking people with better ideas and more talent.
And they're actually really, really nice.
I'm losing my edge.
I heard you have a compilation of every good song ever done by anybody.
Every great song by The Smoke. All the underground hits.
All Derrick Morgan tracks. I heard you have a vinyl of every Bobby Byrd record on German import.
I heard that you have a white label of every seminal techno hit - 1985, '86, '87.
I heard that you have a CD compilation of every good '50s cut and another box set from the '70s.
I hear you're buying a spring reverb and a synthesizer and are throwing your macbook out the window because you want to make something real. You want to make a Grauzone record.
I hear that you and your band have sold your güiro and bought a mellotron.
I hear that you and your band have sold your mellotron and bought a güiro.
I hear everybody that you know is more relevant than everybody that I know.
But have you seen my records?
Harry Pussy,
The Golliwogs,
The Selecter,
Heavy D & The Boyz,
E-Dancer,
Pere Ubu,
The Shadows of Knight,
Symarip,
Gabor Szabo,
Roxette,
The Searchers,
Heaven 17,
Soft Machine,
Babytalk,
Niagra,
Drive Like Jehu,
Sonny Sharrock,
The Grass Roots,
Gian Franco Pienzio,
Pagans,
Chrome,
Joyce Sims,
Gastr Del Sol,
Leonard Cohen,
X-Ray Spex,
Sugar Minott,
Erasure,
the Slits,
Man Parrish,
Sex Pistols,
Bill Near,
Jeru the Damaja,
Theoretical Girls,
Outsiders,
Kurtis Blow,
Sarah Menescal,
Slave,
Nik Kershaw,
The Motions,
Nirvana,
Black Flag,
Barry Ungar,
X-101,
Sexual Harrassment,
Crash Course in Science,
Desert Stars,
Unrelated Segments,
The West Coast Pop Art Experimental Band,
Fifty Foot Hose,
Country Joe & The Fish,
Todd Rundgren,
Delta 5,
Derrick May,
Monks,
The Smoke,
Hashim,
Excepter,
The Leaves,
Visage,
Idris Muhammad,
Soul II Soul,
Larry & the Blue Notes,
Skriet,
David McCallum, David McCallum, David McCallum, David McCallum.
You don't know what you really want.
You don't know what you really want.
You don't know what you really want.
You don't know what you really want.
You don't know what you really want.
You don't know what you really want.
You don't know what you really want.
You don't know what you really want.
You don't know what you really want.
You don't know what you really want.
You don't know what you really want.
You don't know what you really want.
You don't know what you really want.
You don't know what you really want.
You don't know what you really want.